Friday, May 01, 2009

I'm reading Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Illych", which is said to be one to the greatest and most profound stories about death. So far it's a fairly slow read; 'not a lot is happening', as my students might say. However, I have a feeling the author is setting the stage for a dramatic final chapter. Reading this story reminds me, again, of the brilliance of Tolstoy's writing. I remember thinking, when I read "War and Peace" many years ago, that his writing is like a clear pane of glass through which life can be seen in utter clarity -- and this story has that same clarity, page after page. I get the feeling that the author is not interested in showing off his writing skills, but in simply telling an important story.

In the last few days, I read another story by Sarah Orne Jewett, the greatest of all Maine writers. It's called "The Flight of Betsey Lane", and it has the same truthful simplicity that I admire in all her stories. If some writers write like they're building spectacular palaces for all to admire, Jewett writes like she's building small, humble homes somewhere off the beaten path.

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"To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle." -- Walt Whitman

I found this quote (below) in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. She's describing Fanny Price's home at Mansfield, but the words exactly remind me of the atmosphere I try to maintain in my classroom:" ... no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's feelings were consulted."

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The following quote is from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I would like my classroom to be like Dr. Strong's school:

"Dr. Strong's was an excellent school...It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honor and good faith of the [students], and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a share in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity."

Visitors to This Blog, June 12, 2009-

If I replaced "agent" with "teacher", this passage from a short story might, I hope, describe me in my classroom: "The agent spent his days in following what seemed to many observers to be only a dull routine, but all his steadiness of purpose, all his simple intentness, all his gifts of strategy and powers of foresight, and of turning an interruption into an opportunity, were brought to bear upon this dull routine with a keen pleasure."-- from "The Gray Mills of Farley" by Sarah Orne Jewett